- POST-DOCTRINAL EXHORTATIONS.

Transcription

1 Romans 12 Page 1 - POST-DOCTRINAL EXHORTATIONS. - We have now come to the complete and total end of a major form of doctrine (sonship establishment) - and the natural thing for a father to do with his son (before going on to the next form of doctrine) is to give his son some exhortations in connection with what has been covered so far. - And there are several reasons for this one being, in order to ensure that the things the father has done and established within his son is not forgotten also to ensure that the form of doctrine has done its effectual work within the son but another important feature to post-doctrinal exhortations has to do with bringing back into the son s heart the ambition and enthusiasm that is supposed to be there so that the son is crying, Abba, Father, all the more that is, that the son is enthusiastically anticipating the upcoming form of doctrine that will be built upon the preceding form of doctrine he has just accomplished. - And this is exactly what our Heavenly Father expects us to have that is, a godly ambition and godly enthusiasm that comes from a proper and intelligent understanding and appreciation for what He and His sons have, together, just accomplished as well as the godly enthusiasm for desiring to go on to the next form of doctrine our Father is going to teach us. - All of this is required as a proper and positive response to our sonship establishment. - And nothing can generate that godly enthusiasm any more that a demonstration that you, as God s son, can put some things together (so to speak) and prove to yourself by means of these post-doctrinal exhortations that the form of doctrine of your sonship establishment is effectually working in your inner man and that those living words of the Living God that form the doctrine of your sonship establishment live in you! - And by now you should have all of the proper attitude, commitment, godly optimism, and godly enthusiasm (with all human bravado and false sense of courage and human willpower based upon human emotion being eradicated) - all properly developed in your inner man so that your eagerness to go on and begin your sonship education is based upon all that your Father has accomplished in orienting you and establishing you as His son/daughter. - Simply put, you should be crying, Abba, Father, even more now than ever before and your cry of Abba, Father should be genuine & intelligent!

2 Page 2 Romans 12 - But in order to ensure that your cry of Abba, Father is the proper thing it should be and to demonstrate that by you putting some things together in your own mind there are some post-doctrinal exhortations that will check all that out and will bring back into your mind and heart the godly optimism and godly enthusiasm to now get underway with your education proper as well as to make one of the most serious dedications & commitments you ll ever make in your life (to present your bodies a living sacrifice)! - Therefore lets look at a familiar passage of sonship exhortations but now lets view them from the perspective of having accomplished what the Father intends to accomplish with you as His son in both sonship orientation and in sonship establishment. - Proverbs 2:1-9 - Now as we have already looked at before there are 2 groupings of these exhortations that can be called Post-doctrinal Exhortations in regard to the son s level of commitment to his sonship education. - And though we have already looked at these when we did all the background work in Proverbs for sonship education my own understanding now is that there are 2 groups of exhortations for a reason: 1) Has to do with the post-doctrinal exhortation for the son after sonship orientation; 2) Has to do with the post-doctrinal exhortation for the son after his sonship establishment. - That s why these 9 verses have a set of conditions followed by a result (Then ) and then you have another set of conditions (so to speak) followed by another result (another Then ). - And so (:1-5) can be grouped together as the post-doctrinal exhortation for ensuring the son s commitment level at the end of his sonship orientation. - Which corresponds with Romans 8: And (:6-9) can be grouped together to form the post-doctrinal exhortation for ensuring the son s commitment level at the end of his sonship establishment.

3 Romans 12 Page 3 - Which corresponds with Romans 8:16-11:36. - (Just prior to the son presenting his body as a living sacrifice). - And while it isn t right to say that one is more important than the other (and you shouldn't think that at all) if you could say that one was more important or critical than the other, it would be the 2nd exhortation (but, again, you can t say that)! - But I do believe that you can say that one is somewhat easier than the other (or maybe one more involved than the other) and that is the 2nd one more than the 1st. - (i.e., the son s commitment to the effectual working of what he learns!) - Now while I m sure that you are familiar with both of these areas of commitment you re probably more familiar with the first area (The Commitment to Learning) as given in Proverbs 2: (Briefly go over the 3 components to the Commitment to Learning). - (see Rom. 8 Vol. 1) - But though we ve gone over it it s actually in the 2nd grouping or the Exhortation to the son s Commitment to the Effectual Working of what he Learns that s contained in Proverbs 2:6-9 that we need to take some time on and where you re going to demonstrate to yourself if your commitment level is where it should be in order to present your body a living sacrifice in Romans 12: And here, you should be able to put some things together now, that you probably couldn t have done prior to our going through Romans 8:16-39 (especially) and you should be able to now gain the benefits of this post-doctrinal exhortation far better than ever before. - So let s focus our attention on these 4 verses of Proverbs 2 (:6-9), and see if you can match some things up and have a far better appreciation for your sonship establishment than ever before and with this post-doctrinal exhortation, bring back into your mind and heart the godly optimism and godly enthusiasm for going on and beginning your sonship education proper in Romans 12:3 ff.

4 Page 4 Romans 12 - When you examine Proverbs 2:6-9, the obvious thing to notice is that you have another set of conditions (so to speak) - but these aren t like the first set of conditions because the issue here isn t IF you do what you re supposed to do as a son, THEN you ll get the full benefits from the education your Father is about to give you here the tables turn to what the FATHER has done (and will do) in order to ensure the success of your sonship education. - And the emphasis in all the components that make up the information that comes before the Then in (:9) - the emphasis is upon how the Father has taken into consideration all that you as His son will face in this education and He has taken all that into account and made provisions within the very curriculum itself so that you can succeed to the very end of your education even in the face of any and all opposition to it! - And once you have presented to you (in exhortation form, not in any doctrinal form) what the Father has done and will do to ensure your success that s when the Then of (:9) kicks in as a kind of promise to you as His son, that you will indeed receive the instruction you need that will provide for your successful sonship life! - So we can clearly see that you have a body of information contained in verses 6, 7, & 8 followed by a promised result of it all in verse 9. - Now the question is in the body of information contained in (:6-8), how many components do we have? - One of the things that will help us out here is to focus upon the issue that you have a number of things that the LORD is going to do that is, He will do this, and He will do that, and so on and those things that our Father is said to do for us in order to ensure our success as His sons you can take each of those matters and say that each one constitutes one thing that He will do and so, when you can identify how many things He ll do, you have the number of components to the information set forth in (:6-8). - Simply put, you can focus upon the action verbs of (:6-8) and that should amount to the number of the components that make up the body of information. - When we look at (:6 For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.) my understanding is that even though it seems that there are 2 components

5 Romans 12 Page 5 (due to the colon) - the way in which what is said gets said, and the context of what is being said makes it so that you realize that, granted, you do have 2 distinct thoughts here, but the 2nd thought is a further description (or better, a further matter) of the 1st thought. - In other words, the 1st clause sets forth the 1st thing that the LORD is going to do and then the 2nd clause tells you how it s going to get done (so to speak). - And this needs to be presented this way that is, the whole issue here is to get wisdom but not just any wisdom but the LORD s wisdom. (Everything else is just a competing, counterfeit wisdom). - And you need a colon to allow you to pause there long enough so that you appreciate that issue. - But then that wisdom that the LORD is going to give is going to be accomplished & accompanied by the knowledge and understanding that comes out of His mouth and no other mouth is supposed to be listened to by His sons. - The 2 clauses enforce in the son s mind that he is to receive only his Father s wisdom and the knowledge and the understanding that make up the Father s wisdom only comes from Him and He s the only One the son will listen to, and will get that wisdom and knowledge and understanding. - So my understanding is that (:6) in it s entirety forms the first component to this body of information and the action verb that can be identified as the 1st component is the word giveth. - Then the rest of the components can be easily identified simply by pointing to the action verbs in each clause: 2nd Component: layeth up 3rd Component: buckler 4th Component: keepeth 5th Component: preserveth - Therefore you have a total of 5 Components.

6 Page 6 Romans 12 - So the 5 components of (:6-8) are #1 (:6) For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. #2 (:7a) He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: #3 (:7b) he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. #4 (:8a) He keepeth the paths of judgment, #5 (:8b) and preserveth the way of his saints. - And my understanding is that this forms a proper post-doctrinal exhortation that corresponds to the son s completion of his sonship establishment. - And the Father at the end of sonship establishment wants to have his son look back upon the power and the wisdom and the strength that the Father has built into the curriculum His son is just about to embark upon and by doing it this way, He is going to bring back into His sons heart all of the sober, godly confidence and establishment-produced enthusiasm for getting his sonship education underway and therefore the only natural and reasonable thing for the son to do is to present himself to his Father for education and vocational training. - And for this reason my understanding is that these 5 components that make up this exhortation all correspond to those 5 probing questions that you went through in that open heart surgery that the Father performed on you in Romans 8: And once that is re-visited once again by the effectual working of the exhortations you as God s son/daughter should be crying Abba, Father all the more and presenting your body as that living sacrifice is the only natural/reasonable thing for you to do and it should be the thing you want to do more than anything else! - So now let s see how each of the 5 components of this exhortation matches up to the 5 probing questions of Romans 8: Now remember that what you were established in really from Romans 8:28-39 all of that is what you are supposed to think and

7 Romans 12 Page 7 operate upon, and rely upon as you live out your sonship life and you re supposed to utilize this information when you get confronted with opposition from either yourself (as your own worst enemy) or from the Adversary and his Policy of Evil or from any of the sufferings of this present time or any thing that would scare you or frighten you or intimidate you or whatever that would attempt to make it sothat you would decide NOT to go on with your sonship education! - The truth is the information you learned in Romans 8:28-39 is never to be forgotten and never to be laid aside and not to be used in fact, some of these features will be (and should be) used by you over and over and over again for the rest of your sonship life! - Now when it comes to understanding and appreciating those 5 Probing Questions of Romans 8:31-39 you shouldn t need any review on them in fact, you should be experts with those things by now and more than that if you have any qualms or doubts or hesitation about presenting your body as a living sacrifice to your Father, chances are that something in that section of your sonship establishment has NOT effectually done its job in your inner man the way it was supposed to! - And this post-doctrinal exhortation is designed to find that out! - Let s begin matching up the 5 Probing Questions of Romans 8:31-39 with these 5 Exhortation Components of Proverbs 2: Caution: what we re after here is to see a matching up of these issues more in matters of their genera (or their nature), and not matching them up terminology-wise. #1 Proverbs 2:6 For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. - Matches up with Romans 8:31b If God be for us, who can be against us? - So when it comes to this 1st Probing Question what is it talking about how would you explain it?

8 Page 8 Romans 12 - God being for us is in the sense that (:28-30) set forth He s for us to succeed with our sonship education and for the purpose of us being conformed to the image of His Son. - And while we may have not expressed it a lot when we first went over this question the nature of the question is one of POWER! (If God be for us, VS. who can be against us?) - And therefore in the issue of God being for us in this sense: the curriculum has (and will give us as we go through it) all the power we need to deal with everything we could ever encounter that s going to be against us every step of the way! - And that s the issue of recognizing, therefore, God s power IN the curriculum recognizing that every form of doctrine we re going to get and every component in every form of doctrine is to be recognized by us as the powerful Living words of the Living God being for us to achieve the objective of our sonship education. - That s why over in Ephesians 3:20 at the end of Paul s prayer you have that issue of God s power being brought up. (see Eph. 3:20) - Here, you re looking at what you re now learning in Level II Sonship Education being built upon Level I Sonship Education AS THE POWER OF GOD WORKING IN YOU! - And at that particular point, you are to recognize that even though you may consider something impossible God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to that power! - And in Level II you re going to face some things that your flesh is going to come along and tell you that It is impossible for you to succeed you will NOT be able to handle this - But God tells you that the curriculum is going to be able to do it! - And what I m telling you is that the issue of God s power vested in the curriculum for sonship education is a BIG DEAL and should be without a shadow of a doubt in your thinking right now!

9 Romans 12 Page 9 - And right from the beginning of the point of adoption when the father first introduces his son to sonship one of the first things a father does with his son is to make him aware that the education he is giving him is the most powerful thing he will ever possess! - And this concept is a very difficult hurdle to get over that God s greatest manifestation of His power is when His living words live in you and that is difficult to appreciate if you don t have a proper understanding and appreciation for the complete anticipation of sonship that a child has under childhood. - And what I mean by that is that you can t have a proper appreciation for that unless you study it out in God s word sitting back in Ex.-Deut. (esp.), and on through the OT. - A properly educated Israelite knew that in all that God was doing for them great as that was, and as miraculous as it was they knew that because they were locked in under that Law contract, they knew as children that they were receiving LIMITED POWER in their lives. - And that what they were seeing on the outside was not the excellency of the power of God. - And they knew that when the adoption of sons takes place, that those limitations and those restrictions will be gone and the excellency of God s power will be something that they could possess & operate upon. - And it would be the issue of God putting His laws in their mind and writing it on their heart and His words actually living in them! - And since most Christians today don t study that out the assumption is that the greatest manifestation of God s power is in external miracles, signs, and wonders. - And by the time you get to this 1st Probing Question you as God s son in this dispensation of grace you should already possess the realization that you are dealing with the greatest manifestation and effectual working of God s power that He has designed to work.

10 Page 10 Romans 12 - And it s the issue of His living words (in sonship education) living in His sons to the exact same degree they have lived in His own Son, when His own Son in providing for sonship at the cross demonstrated it in His own life! - (And that applies both in God s program with Israel, and with us in this dispensation of grace.) - [That s part of crying, Abba, Father!] - And by perceiving the words of understanding that you re supposed to be doing in Romans 8:16-39 and especially in (:28-30) and all that the Father did to forge the curriculum for your success you should be able to intelligently confess: If God be for me (and He is by what He s just shown me and all the power is there in that curriculum), who can be against me? NO ONE CAN! - And if I fail it s because I didn t avail myself of that power. - And I failed because I went on the basis of my own power it can t cut it! but the living words of the Living God, if I let them live in me, will! - So this first obstacle you are being probed about here in Romans 8:31 (in view of all that :28-30 told you) is the issue of UNDERESTIMATING THAT POWER! - Now the post-doctrinal exhortation that matches up with that sitting back in Proverbs 2:6 is For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. - In other words all that you need to know wisdom-wise; all you need to know knowledge-wise; all you need to know understandingwise God is for you and He s giving it to you in the curriculum, you re going to find it all. - And that s the parallel there that is, If God is for me (and He is; and He s vested the manifestation of the excellency of His power in that curriculum that is to be written on my heart and live in me) - His wisdom, knowledge and understanding is there and I now have it available to me then who can be against me? - Unless this is not effectually working in you you don t have any reason for not presenting your body a living sacrifice, do you?

11 Romans 12 Page 11 - Let s continue matching up the 5 Probing Questions of Romans 8:31-39 with the 5 Exhortation Components of Proverbs 2:6-8. #2 Proverbs 2:7a He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: - Matches up with Romans 8:32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? - So when it comes to this 2nd Probing Question what is it talking about? how would you explain it? - Here, our Father is telling us that He is the One who has the power and the authority to remove His Son from the evil and harm that He is going to have to go through where? on the cross but even though He had that power/authority to do so, He spared not his own Son He spared NOT that is, He allowed His own Son to be delivered unto all the evil and harm that could be thrown at him! - And this was necessary if you were to ever get justified unto eternal life! It was necessary if the Redeemer was to fully perform your redemption! - And redemption was the necessary means for you to not only get the debt & penalty of your sins forgiven and receive the righteousness of Christ imputed to you but it was the necessary means for you to get your sanctified position in Christ the ultimate aspect of which is your adoptions of sons! - And the reason that s supposed to be the impressive thing that it is at this point in this 2nd probing question is because nothing can underscore to you and illustrate to you any more than this act of the Father not even sparing his own Son, but delivering him up for you, nothing can illustrate and underscore to you any more than that, that when it comes to your Father providing for you what you need to succeed as His son: THAT HE WITHHOLDS NOTHING FROM YOU! - If He didn t spare his own Son if that s the degree of the investment He s made, and the degree of the provision He s made for your success then what could possibly be withheld from you to fully and completely be successful as His son?

12 Page 12 Romans 12 Therefore... - Do you think that you re ever going to come to a point where that curriculum He puts in your hands doesn t have the power or the capacity or the ability or the provision for you to succeed in or with whatever comes your way? - Do you think that there will be something that will come up where failure will be imminent? or where danger or harm or evil will be able to succeed in becoming your demise as His son? NO! (why? because He spared not his own Son!) - And you re supposed to not only be suitably impressed with your Father and His capacity but now He s making it so that you look hard at the curriculum He s putting into your hands (and that s going to effectually work in your inner man) and now become suitably impressed with what it can do and the capacity & ability He s designed in that curriculum: in that nothing is withheld from you you will have all of its power and might and capacity and ability to cause you to be successful no matter what comes your way! - God your Father spared not the thing most dear to Him his Son as your Redeemer so that you could be justified, sanctified, and adopted as His son to make this sonship life possible! - To make it possible to have that magnificent chain of provision makes it so that all things work together for good to you! (when you avail yourself of that chain of provision) how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? - That expression how shall he not is like coming along and saying, In light of God sparing not His own Son, but delivering him up for us all in light of that, it would be ridiculous to think He would do all that and give all that so that you would fall short because some where or some place down the line, you don t have all things you need in that curriculum for something you face that could cause you to fail that wasn t freely given to you and provided for you to instead succeed provided for in the very words of that curriculum you hold in your hand! (DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE IT!) - freely give us all things the all things isn t referring to all thing in general but specifically, all the things necessary for your successful sonship life ex., the curriculum, the leading of the Spirit, the opportunities for being vocationally trained, practice, etc., etc.

13 Romans 12 Page 13 - Now when it comes to matching this 2nd Probing Question up with the exhortation back in Proverbs chapter 2 (again, not looking for matching terminology, but matching in nature or genre) - the 2nd Probing Question of Romans 8:32 easily matches up with the first clause of Proverbs 2:7 He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: - And you should be able to recognize that it s almost like what the question is asking in Rom. 8:32 is, Isn t everything that s laid up by my Father going to be freely given to me? - Aren t all the things we need for our success as God s sons going to be there when we need them? - And that s the issue Yes, He shall freely give us all the things we need for our success as God s sons. - 7 He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: - Notice the Father just spoke about wisdom in (:6) - but now He s talking about sound wisdom and He says that He lays it up and that indicates, therefore, that when you need it, it s going to be there for you. - It s laid up it s in reservation and being held for when you need it and that s the emphasis on it being sound wisdom. - It s not just wisdom in general but it s sound wisdom and that particularly pertains to the kind of wisdom you need to be able to make the programmed or scheduled advancements and points of attainments and markers of progress (so to speak) throughout the education. - And that s why it says that He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: and that s not just talking about being righteous in the sense of being justified or saved from the debt & penalty of your sins. - A son is righteous by nature because unless he s been justified unto eternal life, he s not a son of God so a son is righteous by nature as far as justification is concerned but this is not that issue. - This is the issue of a son of God as he s going on in his sonship education and the issue of the righteousness that he s bringing forth in connection with the decisions he s making and the fruit unto holiness he s producing.

14 Page 14 Romans 12 - And there s points of progress that the son is making there s identifiable points of attaining a particular skill, and acquiring a particular measure of understanding and as that progress is being made, there are things that are given opportunity-wise to the son to especially labor with God in what He s doing, and to put on display the success of what has been learned and to, on the basis of that, therefore, be able to come along and say, Ok, we ve learned this, and we ve acquired this skill, and now we can move on to this more advanced issue. - And the issue of laying up sound wisdom for the righteous or the issue of He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? that s the same matter. - God spared not his own Son so that we could be justified, sanctified, and His adopted son and He s made it, therefore, so we re able to successfully progress through our sonship life and He put the curriculum together, therefore, in order for us to meet the objective of it all and the issue is: as we go along, Isn t He going to also freely give us all the things we need to be able to put the education into practice, and acquire the training, and acquire the levels of attainment, and to acquire the points of maturity and to therefore be able to mark down successes along the way and then go on further? And, of course, the answer is YES! - That s only in keeping with the extreme measures He went to, in order to give us our adoption in the first place! (He spared not his own Son!) - Therefore every sonship grace we need every opportunity we need every opportunity for practice and training to put our Father s wisdom on display and every opportunity to labor with Him that s necessary to take something we ve been educated in and to put it into practice and to cement the education in our minds and to acquire the skill from it we re going to freely receive all those things! - And all of that is built into the curriculum and as we progress through the curriculum, they ll be identified and you ll come along and be given an opportunity to train with the very thing you just learned!

15 Romans 12 Page 15 - And that s what a son expects his Father to be able to do to demonstrate to him what is resident in the curriculum so that the son can be optimistic that he s going to be able to progress (after all, edification involves a building process, and therefore a son s not only building up information, but he s building up skills and maturity and experience as far as the ability to make even wiser decisions and labor more and more extensively and to put on display on a regular ongoing and ever increasing basis, that he s able to handle more difficult tasks and deal with the information in a more comprehensive and a more thought-provoking and a deeper, more penetrating level). - And built into the curriculum are all the provisions to do just that and you ll get them freely given to you in the curriculum as you need them! (And as they re appropriate for you to deal with them). - And you ll perceive them (the curriculum will make them obvious to you) - and you ll be able to avail yourselves of them you ll have the opportunity to do good (so to speak) in the situation and at a particular level and demonstrate it and put it on display. - And that s what s involved in that 2nd Probing Question (that 2nd potential obstacle) to succeeding with the sonship education and that is that you won t have all the opportunities you need to be able to fully train and fully qualify yourself and fully make it to the end. - And in order to succeed with our sonship education there has to be the opportunities to put into practice what you re learning it s not all book work - it s not all academic but there s the issue of walking worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called (Eph. 4:1). - And that requires opportunities and you ve got to have them and you ve got to be able to recognize them you ve got to recognize (as Prov. 3:3 says) mercy and truth and not forsake them and you ve got to have that mercy and truth be given to you when you know how to devise that which is good. - And the issue in this 2nd Probing Question/2nd Exhortation is that you are going to get all those things freely given!

16 Page 16 Romans 12 - God has not put the curriculum together and forgotten about freely giving you all those opportunities. - And in fact this is one of the areas in which the Corinthians had to have their thinking corrected - see I Corinthians 15:58 here Paul has just come through a major corrective-type form of doctrine and then he exhorts them to put it into practice (always abounding in the work of the Lord) and then in the very next chapter, he shows them, Here s a whole bunch of ways to do that, that you ve probably never even thought of! (see ch. 16:1ff) - And all that is part & parcel of being able to lean a form of doctrine, then perceiving the opportunity to utilize it by walking worthy of who you are as your Father s son and walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. - Now you might be tempted to say Well, that was in Paul s day and in a totally different environment that I find myself in in the USA in 2011 So how are those forms of doctrine going to apply here? - Well, the issue is that built into the curriculum is the ability to perceive those things (i.e., how that form of doctrine can be applied) and you will be freely given those opportunities to put that doctrine into practice. - And you have to have the confidence (right from the outset in sonship establishment) that that s TRUE that it s all applicable to you right now (to a son living in this situation and this environment as compared to a son living in another situation and another environment) and you ve got to have that kind of confidence and that optimism about the sonship curriculum (because thinking otherwise would produce a pessimistic thinking in respect to yourself to succeed in it). - And while you may not have the same situation or same environment as those you read about in God s word the truth is, you still have an opportunity to put what you learn into practice and walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called in another sense and in another way!

17 Romans 12 Page 17 - Moving on to the next match up of the 5 Probing Questions of Romans 8:31-39 with the 5 Exhortation Components of Proverbs 2:6-8 - #3 Proverbs 2:7b he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. - Matches up with Romans 8:33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God s elect? It is God that justifieth. - So again, when it comes to this 3rd Probing Question what is it talking about? how would you explain it? - As you are aware by now the final 3 Probing Questions of Romans 8:33, 34, & 35 all address the kind of stiff opposition that we will face in our sonship lives the enemies to sonship edification. - And that stiff opposition will come in 3 major ways or in 3 Phases. - And since nothing in God s word is given randomly, these Who questions don t occur randomly they are given in a particular order. - And since the very first one (Who shall lat any thing to the charge of God s elect?) and it s corresponding exhortation (he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly) - in that very 1st opposition the son will face is the issue of God being a buckler for him and a buckler is an instrument of war and that indicates that the son is going to be engaged in a warfare and that sets in his mind the magnitude of the kind of opposition he s going to face. - So in this warfare of opposition the son faces there are 3 areas or 3 fronts (so to speak) in which he s going to have to fight and my understanding is that since they re not given randomly the 1st Who question of Rom. 8:33 is going to be the most common and the most troublesome for you the 2nd Who question will be the 2nd most common & troublesome and the 3rd Who question will be the 3rd most common & troublesome for you. - Now as we have come to understand and appreciate already (and just as a son is made aware of from the outset that he is going to face some stiff opposition setting there in Proverbs 1:7 he s told what the first, the most common, the most often troublesome enemy that will attempt to derail his sonship education and that he s going to have to fight [The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.] - is himself) you are your own worst enemy!

18 Page 18 Romans 12 - And that s your first form of opposition because if you re going to be a fool then you ve caved in to some opposition that desires you to be a fool and if you ve despised wisdom and instruction then you have listened to a source of opposition that s opposed to the Lord wanting to educate you as His son and that opposition is coming straight from you, yourself! - Your first form of opposition is YOURSELF and to be more explicit: sin in your members. - And that s the very thing you re taught about in Romans 6, 7, and the first 13 verses of chapter 8 before you get to sonship. - And because that is the greatest, most common opposition to your sonship life that s why so much time is spent on that issue and that s why so much is taught to you about it as a lead in to sonship in the book of Romans! - Sins mastership in your members has been broken, all well and good, but it s still there! It s still in your members it still has that lust and it makes it s appeal you don t have to obey it, but it s still there it s constant, it s relentless, and it s the most common opposition a son will ever face. - Now in view of the 3rd Probing Question of Romans 8:33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God s elect? if you intelligently understand & appreciate what the probing question is asking and going after it should follow that you intelligently understand & appreciate the godly remedy and why the issue of that remedy is: It is God that justifieth. - You know that what this probing question is going after is the issue of that first aspect of your inheritance as an heir of God you are set to inherit the kingdom of God which is NOT just another way of saying that you will have eternal life and live in heaven with God in a new, glorified, immortal body but it s an inheritance that is directly related to your Father s business! - And you have been informed that as an heir of God your Heavenly Father, you re going to be in that creature and as a member of the new creature, you re going to have a part in liberating the creature from the bondage of corruption!

19 Romans 12 Page 19 - So now put yourself in your Father s position and through your Father s eyes and with His attitude toward what it means for you to be His heir how would you answer the probing question of (:33)? - When You have provided all that you ve said you ve provided for in (:28-30) - when Your son comes to you and has muffed-up in his own sonship curriculum so badly that he stands before you charged with something that could mean he would actually fail to receive his heir of God inheritance what would you say to him in order to relieve his shaken confidence that, because of his own stupidity and foolishness whereby he has become his own enemy to his sonship life what would you say to him to get him to wise-up and stop feeling guilty, self-pity, despondent, discouraged, and depressed and get up, dust off, and go on? - You d say, Look son, stop dragging your tail, I justified you in the first place, didn t I? And you how permanent your justification is, right? Ok, I just didn t just justify you unto eternal life permanently, but in your justification you also became my permanent heir because you are a permanent member of my family, aren t you? So son, is there any thing or any way that you could possibly loose your inheritance as my son? or fail to get your inheritance as my son? No? So what s the problem? - And as I ve pointed out before it s perfectly appropriate (and even the most excellent) way to talk about this as a justification issue because as you learned back in Romans 1:1-4, the gospel of God or gospel of Christ is composed of both your justification and your sanctification but you can t learn about sanctification until you first learn about justification! - And your Father wants you thinking about your justification here; but NOT in connection with anything to do with your eternally secure at-one-ment (as a re-cap of Romans 1-5) - but He wants you thinking about justification in a specific way (with you as His heir) and when you do that, you should think about the strength of Him justifying you and the strength of Him justifying you doesn t only make your eternal life secure it makes your inheritance as an heir of God eternally secure as well! - And just as secure as you are in the fact that you re going to go to God s heaven when you die and have eternal life with Him forever you, as a member of His family, are just as secure in the fact that as a son, you re going to inherit the kingdom of God in the creature NO MATTER WHAT!

20 Page 20 Romans 12 - So that solves the problem of you as a son, ever becoming depressed or despondent or full of self-pity when you ve muffed up in the curriculum for sonship education to where a charge could be laid upon you that would make so that you fail to receive your sonship inheritance as an heir of God! - And when the time comes when a charge could be laid against you, your Father says, Look at it, son, from my perspective I justified you; I knew what I was doing when I did it; the strength of what I did to justify you makes it so that you have that inheritance as my adopted son that s yours! and there s nothing you could ever do to thwart that inheritance being yours! - And that s His attitude towards me, being His heir! - You see, this isn t trying to work out some doctrinal issue in the doctrine of justification at all it s taking what you ve already been told and now gaining the Father s own attitude towards it all (towards you as His justified, adopted son who is now a member of His family and an heir of Himself). - And this should make a huge impact upon your heart (your inner man) - it should have a kick to it because you re now thinking about justification (not as merely permanently secure and at-one with God) - but as a son who also has the strength of that permanent justification being extended to your inheritance as an heir of God your Father! - And the issue is what my Father s done for me as His heir, and His attitude toward me as His heir, doesn t hinge upon me screwing up (sinning-wise)! (What a joy that is!) - And the kicker is: GOD HAS DESIGNED (IN ADVANCE) FOR HIS SON S OWN FAILURES and He s designed for those failures NOT to be a devastating thing (something that so overwhelms you that it becomes a fatal blow to your sonship life!) - Ok now let s take that issue of the 3rd Probing Question (and it s godly remedy) and see how it matches up with Proverbs 2:7b when you re informed about the kind of opposition you ll face and the full capacity of the curriculum to deal with the problems that we encounter as sons and here in (:7b) we deal with the first enemy we ll face (and the warfare that will take place with it) - and God says that He s a buckler to them that walk uprightly.

21 Romans 12 Page 21 - (And here s where you ll get an appreciation for why it says buckler and not shield ) - [which every modern English translation of the Bible changes from buckler to shield. ] - First of all a buckler is a kind of shield but buckler and shield do NOT mean the same thing that is, buckler isn t just another way of saying a shield. - Notice: in numerous passages God uses both buckler and shield together but note just one passage: Psalm 91:4 (read) - A buckler is actually a species of a shield it s a particular kind of shield but it s not designed to do what a full body-shield does which is what a shield is all about a full body shield is primarily designed to get your entire body behind and to deflect anything that comes your way (like in Eph. 6 the shield of faith which is what you hide behind when those fiery darts come your way or when the arrows come at you or the big rocks are coming in from the slings and catapults that are used against a standing army). - Unlike the shield a buckler is used in hand-to-hand combat! - The buckler is the soldier s weapon against another soldier! - (In other words another person, just like himself!) - The buckler is the shield or weapon that the soldier never puts down! - In fact, it s usually strapped on to his arm it can t come off he can t lose it. - He can lay down his body-shield in fact, once the arrows and the darts and the slings are done, the soldier usually does drop his body-shield and then he charges the other soldiers with his sword in his right hand and his buckler on his left arm the buckler is attached to his arm, it never comes off. - And what I m saying in all this is that this is the kind of terminology you would be utilizing to describe a defensive, protection-type piece of armament (so to speak) to deal with your constant and closest opponent! (Just like in hand-to-hand, arm-to-arm combat!) - And that exactly what you re dealing with when you re dealing with YOURSELF when you re dealing with sin in your members that s your closest and constant opponent!

22 Page 22 Romans 12 - The truth is the Adversary can t even be described like that with us. - He may be our most determined opponent but he s not always close and he s not always there. - But sin in our members always is! - And that s why the buckler term is used in connection with that issue. - And the kind of opposition that sin in our members always rears its ugly head in opposition to is when we re walking uprightly! - It s when we re walking after the Spirit that the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. (Which you re taught about in Romans 6:1-8:13, and over in Galatians). - Therefore, when it says in Proverbs 2:7b, he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly our Father is dealing with what He has built into the curriculum that s designed to be able to deal with sin in our members our most constant, closest, and most frequent opponent: OURSELVES! - And it s especially important when we do fail when we do yield to that opposition of the lust of our flesh and we stop walking uprightly. - And there s particular information that God has built into the curriculum that He wants us to operate upon when this kind of opposition gets the best of us which is designed to recover ourselves and go on. - It s kind of like you re the soldier there with your buckler on and you get knocked down what do you do now? well, the buckler actually gives you the capacity to get back up again (that one of its most important reasons for its design and its purpose: giving the soldier the capacity to get back up again) it s recognized that the soldier will get knocked down in combat but this piece of his armament allows for him to put it to use in order to regain his footing and stand back up and get back into the fight! - It s an ingenious defensive implement of war!

23 Romans 12 Page 23 - The proper use of the buckler was not to hold it in your hand, but to have it actually laced on to your arm with leather straps and then the soldiers would put water on the leather to shrink it and tighten it up on the arm so it couldn t turn on the arm and so it would always be facing out toward the enemy and the buckler would be made of some kind of metal plate with another piece of metal attached to it that stuck out or had a point on it so it could produce a glancing blow from the enemy s sword. - And when the soldier was down on the ground he could put his left arm up with the buckler on it and he would be able to deflect the blows from his enemy with that buckler just long enough for him to put his hand (that had his sword in it) down on the ground and be able to push himself back up. - And that s why it had the shape that it had and was small enough for maneuverability. - And when you think of all those things you begin to realize the precision of what God has done and the terminology He has chosen - He s dealing with the first form of opposition, and the most common form of opposition we face and He uses terminology to describe the close, hand-to-hand, arm-to-arm combat that a soldier has which illustrates the close, constant, one-on-one type battle that we would have with sin in our members (with that opposition coming from within our own selves) and then He puts it together with the issue of walking uprightly (and that has to do with what we re trying to do as sons) [the issue with a soldier isn t one of walking uprightly] - but the issue is that in fighting, the soldier has to stand and he has to be upright he can t fight on his back. - But the issue is that the opponent wants to get him on his back and when he s on his back, he s failed in his position and he has been knocked down; he has been overcome by his opponent. - But the issue is: he doesn t have to give up he doesn t have to open his arms (so to speak) and let his opponent put his sword to his throat and claim, Victory!

24 Page 24 Romans 12 - He s got that buckler up he can deflect all those blows and it enables him to get back up again. - And that s the concept in connection to us walking uprightly that s the position we re supposed to be in and the closest, most common, powerful opponent we face is ourselves when we fail by yielding to sin in our members as its lusts come along as we re walking uprightly - that buckler does the very thing that s described in our epistles (especially in Romans 6, 7, and 8). - And when we do fail because we stupidly yield ourselves to the lust of our flesh our Father has given us something in the curriculum that we re supposed to think about and something He tells us to operate upon and it enables us to, when we are knocked down and fail to continue to walk uprightly, to get back up and go on. - And that s the way in which the 3rd Probing Question of Romans 8:33 matches up with the son s Exhortation to his Commitment to the Effectual Working of what he Learns in Proverbs 2:7b! - Let s move on to the next match up of the 5 Probing Questions contained in Romans 8:31-39 with the corresponding Exhortation for the son s Commitment to the Effectual Working of what he Learns over in Proverbs 2:6-8 #4 Proverbs 2:8a He keepeth the paths of judgment, (The 4th Component of Proverbs 2:6-8) - Matches up with the 4th Probing Question of Romans 8:34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. - So when it comes to this 4th Probing Question what is it talking about How would you explain it? - My understanding is that what we re dealing with here in (:34) is Part B (so to speak) when it comes to the issue of us being our own worst enemy. - And the condemnation issue here that is different from the charge being laid against us issue of (:33) is the kind of condemnation that a son can bring upon himself because of the kind of failures that a son can make that are not legal violations of God s holiness and righteousness in his walk (like sinful behavior would be) - but are another kind of failures which are more along the lines of that sonship stupidity we ve often talked about.

25 Romans 12 Page 25 - Because they are failures in the sense of not wanting to (or not being willing to) respond positively and properly to issues in our sonship curriculum and in our sonship lives that we have every legal right given to us as a son to say no to, if we want to but we re also told by our Father that it s stupid and foolish for us to do that! - But He s not going to come along and whack us with a cane or anything along those lines He s dealing with us as adult sons and if we choose to opt out then we also choose the consequences that go along with that. - And this is the other side of the coin of us being our own worst enemy because when you look at the issue of sonship itself and what the sonship life of a son is all about there really are only 2 ways in which a son can fail his Father: - One is by the legal offences of participating in outright sinful, course-of-the-world behavior as if he didn t care at all that he was a justified/sanctified son. - And the other is to opt out of participating in these grace features of his sonship. - Both kind of failures will produce grief and godly sorrow in a son (if he s sensitive to his failures) but both will not produce (necessarily) the exact same kind of viewpoint when the failures are acknowledged. - And when it comes to the failures in connection with having opted out of, or chosen not to fully participate in those sonship graces (or opportunities & honors & privileges) and the like the kind of self-recrimination & condemnation that comes upon a son when he has to face up to the fact that that s what he s been doing his outlook (viewpoint) then is, I might as well not even bother going on it s kind of like thinking I ve fallen so far behind I ve made such a mess out of this it s just not worth it. - And that s putting it mildly!!! - This gets even more personal and more emotional than Part A of (:33). - It s important to recognize that the condemnation being spoken about here is not a condemnation in the legal sense of the word.